


The Reckoning

by somewhereelse



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Susan Williams (mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-05 09:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10303130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somewhereelse/pseuds/somewhereelse
Summary: Season 5B. Felicity reaches a breaking point; Oliver isn't having it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> LOOK, ARROW WRITERS, I FIXED IT FOR YOU. WASN'T THAT HARD. 
> 
> (This is to say I finally wrote in the Arrow-verse.)

“Susan broke up with me again. Because of what you did,” Oliver blurted out the moment the front door of the loft opened. Sensing that Felicity was about to close the door in his face, he shouldered his way in, nearly tripping over an open box, one of many littered around the large room. He knew she hadn’t been to the bunker in a while—it’s why he had to track down Dig to shake her location out of the man—but what in hell was going on?

“All I did was expose her unethical behavior,” Felicity replied to his back, and Oliver turned slowly to face her unapologetic expression. The rival news outlets had gleefully exposed the reporter as an unethical hack after an anonymous source tipped them off as to how she went about “fact-finding”. “Turns out Thea should have just gone with the truth instead of making up plagiarism allegations.”

When Oliver just ground his jaw in clear disapproval, she scoffed, “You’ve done worse to better people for lesser sins. Don’t get angry with me because your girlfriend values her job over you. Though I guess it is partly my fault for conditioning you to expect unconditional loyalty. How many times did you cost me my livelihood, my career, Oliver? How many times did I stand by you anyway? But you’ve never appreciated that loyalty, at least not when it comes from me and John.”

He drew his brow together and involuntarily curled his lip in distaste. “What are you talking about? You guys are my family; you make me better. I don’t ever want to take you for granted.” Felicity visibly bit back her retort and rolled her eyes, and Oliver floundered in the silence for a long minute. She hadn’t looked so tired of him since the last time he’d been in this loft surrounded by packed boxes. Speaking of, he finally asked the obvious question, “What is all this?”

Lifting a shoulder in a careless shrug, Felicity plainly stated, “I can’t stay here anymore.”

There was a tense moment as he realized that she was talking about more than the loft. Feeling the wind knocked out of him, Oliver blindly groped for a pillar, leaning heavily into it for support. “Why not?”

Again, she rolled her eyes at him. “Since you obviously haven’t noticed, I am _losing_ it. First, there was the paralysis and miracle recovery. Then there was you and your technical truths and lies of omission. Then there was Havenrock and Rory. Now, it’s Billy who died because I never seem to make the right decision. I am falling into old habits and taking monumentally bad risks, and it took a phone call from my _mother_ for me to realize it. I _cannot_ stay here anymore. I’m sorry if that makes your life inconvenient, Oliver, but it’s not as if I’m anything but a burden to you these days anyway.”

“You are not a burden.” His response was immediate and vehement. “You are my friend and the woman I will always—care about.”

“But never enough to put me first,” Felicity shot back, a weary resignation filling her eyes. “That’s the sad reality of our relationship, friendship. I’ve always been there for you, and I don’t regret a second of that, but I don’t know. You always have an excuse to withhold from me. Because it’s for my own protection, because Samantha gave you an ultimatum that was pretty much null and void the minute Damian Darhk found out about William, because you’re so blindly optimistic that you trust a woman, who you’ve known for about two months and who’s been collecting evidence not only against you but also against everyone you claim to care about, more than you trust me. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of your words never matching up to your actions. And I’m tired of the person I’ve become in reaction to it.”

“I _knew_ something’s been bothering you,” he muttered under his breath, recalling all the times he’d gotten a strange vibe from Felicity. “Why didn’t you just talk to me? You know I would do anything to help you, too.”

Felicity shot him a look of pure disbelief. “You seemed a little too preoccupied asking your ex-fiancée to save your girlfriend’s job, when clearly she isn’t deserving of the trust you’ve put in her.”

Tired of having heard it from Thea and Quentin, it was Oliver’s turn to scoff. “You’re the one who wanted me to be more open and trusting. Now you’re pissed off because I’ve done exactly what you wanted.”

“I did _not_ mean blindly put all your faith into the first woman who throws herself at you and then proves herself unethical and even more untrustworthy.” Oliver was taken aback by the fervor in her tone. It wasn’t quite Loud Voice territory, but he knew they were getting close to it. “I know I normally cannot argue ethics, but I’m not holding myself out as a “journalist” when I’m actually paying off sources and sleeping with my subjects.”

Growing defensive and raising his anger level to match hers, Oliver lobbed back a low blow, “She was there for me when none of you were. You walked away from me. And it’s not like what you and Thea did was right either.”

Felicity absorbed the hit, and he practically felt her closing off just as she’d done when she handed him back her engagement ring for the second time. “Because you, A, closed yourself off, and, B, did it to yourself. Do I need to remind you that I broke off our engagement only after you didn’t trust me enough to tell me about William? Even with Samantha’s ultimatum, you didn’t think to reevaluate the situation after you realized Malcolm knew, Damien Darhk, Thea? At no point did you think, “hey, maybe we’ve reached a critical mass of people who know this “secret” so I should tell my frakking fiancée, who’s just been _paralyzed_ , before she’s blindsided in a dark parking garage”? It’s not like one day I decided I didn’t love you anymore; it’s more like one day I was sucker-punched with the realization that the man I wanted to share my life with clearly didn’t want the same, not if he’s hiding an entire human being from me.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she sent him a scathing look and carried on, “And I do not need the “two wrongs don’t make a right” lecture from a man who has gone back to killing. You really want to lecture me about getting your girlfriend fired, when you got my boyfriend _killed_ and have yet to do _anything_ to make his life worth it?” Oliver’s jaw ticked as he took in the force of her anger, letting loose on the double standard he’d tried to hold her to.

“You want me to give Susan all that information back?” Felicity offered sarcastically. “Let her expose Mayor Oliver Queen as a former Bratva captain and the current Green Arrow? You want to go to jail? That’s fine, but how long do you think it’ll take the SCPD or the FBI or whoever gets called in for these types of messes to start going after the Green Arrow’s associates? Because the whole world knows he hasn’t been acting alone. How long until they drag Roy out of hiding, until they throw the rest of us into maximum security prison, until they connect our team to the one in Central City? You want me to throw all of our lives away so you can continue to get laid?”

His hackles rose at the base accusation, and Oliver reflexively spit out, “Susan wouldn’t do that to me, to us.”

“Says who? Her? The woman who’s been lying to you about her intentions from the very beginning?” The laugh was sharper and more bitter than he’d ever heard from her. “I’m supposed to take a liar’s word over every survival instinct that _you_ taught me to hone? I don’t care if it makes me a bitch,” Felicity met his gaze dead-on without an ounce of regret, “but I’ll gladly burn her if it means protecting the people I care about.”

“I trust her,” Oliver insisted, because he was so very tired of things not going his way, of making the wrong decision time and time again, and of playing into Prometheus’ hands. If only he could have one thing in the world that wasn’t tainted by his double life as the Green Arrow, he would hold onto it with a death grip.

“And I’m telling you, _we’ve_ been telling you, that we don’t so give us some evidence to back up your claim. But you don’t have any, because every shred of evidence points to her being shady and unscrupulous,” Felicity concluded, shaking her head at his blind faith. “Where was this trust when we were taking down the League of Assassins and you went behind our backs to involve Malcolm Merlyn, when you found out about William and didn’t trust me enough to help protect him? See? This is part of why I can’t stay here. This isn’t a partnership, it’s a dictatorship run by a guy whose only rationale is “because I said so.” The same guy who’s oblivious to the state of his team, the people who are _committing crimes_ to help him, because he’s too busy trying to prove that he can be a good boyfriend to a woman who’s done nothing to deserve the effort.”

“I already told you,” he repeated, wanting to shake her by the shoulders, “she was there for me when no one else was.” And that display of loyalty deserved some of his in return.

“Well, has she committed any federal crimes to aid your life’s mission? Has she taken a bullet for you? Has she literally sacrificed her life and future to take the fall for you? Until she does, I still think we should get priority in the pecking order of people you owe your loyalty to,” Felicity retorted as if reading his mind. The team, every version of it, had given themselves wholly to Oliver’s cause, and Felicity couldn’t believe that _Susan_ was the person reaping the benefits of that object lesson on loyalty. “Because we have been there for you for _years_ , and you’ve never shown us this level of consideration before. Excuse me for wondering why she’s such a special snowflake to be deserving of your honesty and loyalty.”

Oliver was speechless. He knew he’d done wrong by the various members of his team from time to time, and he knew they had all forgiven him for it. This was him trying to prove that their forgiveness was worth it, that he had learned from his past mistakes and wouldn’t repeat them going forward. Yet, he still couldn’t get it right. Thea and Quentin had never liked Susan after her initial attempts to fool them; Felicity had mostly held her tongue, being in the awkward position of ex-fiancée, but apparently the imminent threat to the team was her final straw. Maybe he needed to admit that, as Felicity claimed, the person he’d chosen to prove himself with was a person undeserving of his efforts.

Before he could relent, soften his position, Felicity tacked on a crushing line, “And Thea’s coming with me.”

“You can’t do that,” he automatically responded with a frown, “She’s my sister.”

“Right, well, she’s also an adult who makes her own decisions. I’m not making her do anything,” Felicity pointed out logically. “Not to mention, your mayor’s office went off the rails while she was gone for three weeks, and you’re still ignoring her advice now that she’s back. I’m sure she’s feeling as underappreciated and overworked as I am. Tell Dinah she has open invitation to join us once she’s sick of being surrounded by broody man-pain that doesn’t respond to common sense or logic.”

“Where are you even going?” he focused back on the most important issue. The consequences of this argument would mean nothing if she weren’t even here to experience them. “Star City is your home.”

“And so was Vegas and so was Boston. I’m adaptable,” Felicity shrugged off his inquiry, caving slightly when he turned imploring eyes on her. “Silicon Valley. I put out some feelers last week and already got a couple offers. Classmates, professors, you know the drill.”

Feeling struck dumb again, Oliver froze. They had never discussed what happened with Palmer Tech or why she hadn’t fought to get her position back. She’d saved a substantial amount from her CEO salary—the loft having been purchased with Malcolm’s blood money years ago and clothes being her only vice—and still occasionally received dividends from being a (large) minority shareholder of the company’s stock. It was public that her ousting had been a matter of office politics, not competency, and that Palmer Tech was on the up-and-up again only because of projects developed during her tenure. Sometimes, he forgot that she was a genius who shouldn’t be stuck hiding in a basement running operations for a vigilante crew.

“What about the team?” What about me? he couldn’t help but think, slightly hopeful when she looked away guiltily.

“You guys will survive,” Felicity answered softly, “Curtis can run comms; he’s not very useful in the field anyway.” She laughed lightly to herself, and Oliver involuntarily chuckled along. “Dinah’s already helping a ton, and Rene is finally sort of in line. Who knows, maybe Rory will be ready to come back soon. To help you with Prometheus, to use my skill set to contribute, I would have to—I’d have to give over my _soul_. And I can’t do that again and expect to survive.”

Oliver frowned at the response, wondering what exactly she was referring to. He knew the incident with Cooper Seldon had been the darkest part of her past—well, at least until she’d gotten involved with his shenanigans—but had she been wandering too close to the edge without him noticing? “ _Felicity_ ,” he tried, pulling his hands from the default position of buried in his pockets and instinctively reaching for her.

“It’s not up for discussion, Oliver,” Felicity took a deliberate step back, “It’s a matter of self-preservation. You once said that I brought you into the light, Oliver, but I can’t do it anymore. Not when I’m sinking into the darkness.”

“Then let me help,” Oliver offered desperately, “Let me help you. Let me be the person you rely on.”

“No,” her answer was firm and cold. “No, not when it’s clearly out of a sense of obligation. I’ve never seen you give yourself so freely to another person before. Not to Laurel, not to Sara, and certainly not to _me_. It was like pulling teeth some days,” she added under her breath, “Obviously, there’s something real between you and Susan that makes you want to give yourself to her. I mean this sincerely, Oliver, I want you to be happy and if that’s with Susan, then...” Felicity couldn’t force out a positive adjective so she cleared her throat to carry on, “What I’m trying to say is I didn’t do any of this to sabotage your relationship, and I’m sorry if that’s what happened, but I can’t place your happiness over everyone else’s safety. It’s just the last thing I needed to clean up before leaving.”

“Stop! Stop saying that you’re leaving!” Oliver yelled, the underlying current of panic in his voice startling both of them. “We need to talk about this first,” he tried to sound calmer but the slight panting gave away his desperation.

Giving him a funny look, Felicity slowly replied, “No, _we_ don’t. You’re with Susan, or you want to be at least, and there is no _us_ anymore.”

He made a frantic gesture to cut her off, and she wrinkled her forehead. “I was only open to Susan because you had moved on with Billy and I felt like I needed to do the same,” he rushed out, the previously unacknowledged truth of the words widening his eyes as he said them. “You—you’re right. You more than anyone deserve my honesty and my trust and my faith. I didn’t give that to you, and you rightfully walked away from me. What I gave to Susan was everything I wanted to give to you but no longer had the right to, not after how I mistreated you. This sounds terrible but she was just there, and I was scared of hurting anyone else I cared about.” Oliver bit his lip nervously, watching as Felicity processed his words, eyes blinking wildly.

When she looked up at him, disbelief and skepticism etched on her features, he knew he had to continue, “I know I don’t have the right to ask but I am. I’m asking you _please_ not to leave. Whatever you’re going through, whatever has got you scared enough to run, we can face it together. Let me help you like you’ve helped me. I at least owe you that much.”

“Oliver, you don’t owe me anything,” she shook her head sadly, gaze dropping back to the floor, and Oliver felt like he was losing her.

“Try my life. Try just about every happy memory I’ve had in the past five years,” he shot back readily, suddenly prepared to beg her. “You’ve always been our steady hand, Felicity, even when you weren’t fine, even when you were fighting your own demons. It’s my turn now. Learn from my mistakes. You don’t have to go it alone.” When she blew out a long sigh and turned to walk away from him, Oliver felt his heart sink. He squeezed his eyes tight shut against the unexpected pressure foretelling tears, somehow feeling as if this was the time he finally lost her for good.

“Come sit down.” His eyes blinked open at the sharp command, and he followed her voice to find Felicity curled up on the couch. Dazed, Oliver drifted over. As he rounded the long couch, his hands involuntarily skimmed her hair to confirm she was there. “It’s not a long story, but it’s complicated. There’s this organization called Helix.” As he listened, clenching his jaw every time he wanted to interrupt and hypocritically ask how she could have been so stupid, Oliver felt a weight lift off his shoulders. He could help her fix this, and maybe fix them in the process.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It begs for a third part but I don't know that I have it in me.

“How’s our girl doing?” Dig asked when he took a break from beating a dummy into the ground.

Oliver tossed down the pieces of the wooden staff he’d broken into splinters and grimaced at the other man. “Frustrating,” he blew out a long sigh, resting his hands on his hips. “She told me about Helix,” Oliver carefully ventured, making a face when Dig nodded knowingly. _Damn it_ , had everyone but him already known? “But she’s shut down since then. Won’t tell me what’s going on, won’t let me help, just says she has it handled.”

Stifling a chuckle, because this was serious business, Dig couldn’t help but shoot back, “Annoying isn’t it? To be given half the facts too late and then sidelined when all you want to do is help?” Based on his frosty expression, Dig knew Oliver didn’t appreciate the unsubtle call back to his hypocritical behavior. “Well, you’ve got a week to figure it out.” Oliver just tilted his head in question, and Diggle sighed heavily. _Cowards_ , the both of them. “She’s still leaving. That didn’t change.”

The other man sputtered incoherently, eyes wide and disbelieving, before he lurched towards the elevator. Dig was quick to block his path. “Hey, man, she’s not trying to hurt you. She’s just putting herself first for once. Felicity’s been off-kilter for over a year. If she thinks she needs distance to find her center again, then I’m not going to stand in her way, and you aren’t either.” Dig infused the last part of the sentence with all the authority and command the military had imbued in him and watched as Oliver froze in front of him.

“She can’t leave, Dig!”

Unimpressed by Oliver’s yell, Diggle calmly asked, “Why not?”

Oliver faltered, having expected Dig to read between the lines as he always did. Still, he wasn’t above saying it out loud. “Because I need her.”

“Tough shit,” Dig scoffed, though he wasn’t entirely unsympathetic. “My life’s better with her in it, too, but that doesn’t give me the right to make her stay. Oliver, she needs this, and that’s more important than what we need. It’ll be hard, _harder_ , but we can get Prometheus without her help. He’s a short-term problem, but we may lose Felicity entirely if she doesn’t have the time and space, and _freedom_  to level out.”

“Yeah? How’d time, space, and freedom go when you and Lyla got divorced?” Oliver threw back, half-spitefully and half-genuinely, belatedly feeling like the petulant _Ollie_  he’d left behind.

“To be honest? It was probably the best thing for our relationship. We found our way back to each other, but only after we sorted our shit out and really dug into the how’s and why’s of getting back together. Wasn’t easy, going to be weird explaining it to the kiddos down the line, but it was the right thing to do.” He waited a minute for the concept to sink into Oliver’s thick skull. “You two are barely friends right now. You really want to get ahead of yourself and consider a relationship again?”

“Yes. Always,” Oliver’s response was immediate and sincere as he met Dig’s eyes. “I don’t know what it looks like from her perspective, after Billy and Susan, but that door’s not closed for me. Maybe not ever.”

Dig weighed his words carefully before formulating his response. “Then you need to stop being selfish. And you need to fight for her. Because she watched you fight for Susan, like you never fought for her, and it was a major blow to her self-esteem _and_ her confidence in you.” Oliver twitched uncomfortably. He knew she could get jealous, as easily as he got jealous, but the idea that he continued to hurt her even after they broke up made him ill.

“Felicity may have forgiven you, she may be okay letting you back in every once and awhile, but she’s not going to _forget_ any time soon. And whenever she remembers the pain you caused her and the heartbreak you two went through and how poorly you handled the aftermath, she’s going to shut down and shut you out. It’s going to feel unfair sometimes, but it’s your job to keep proving yourself, until the times you are there for her outweigh the times you weren’t.”

Oliver nodded along, wincing at the painful reminders of the past year. This is why he needed Dig in his life, to sort him out whenever the selfish, spoiled, inattentive spectre of Ollie reared his head. “You’re right,” the words were starting to feel familiar on his tongue, “What should I do next?”

“That’s for you to figure out.”

* * *

“Hey,” Oliver tried for a charming smile, already feeling discouraged by her distracted expression, “Can I come in?”

“I’m kind of in the middle of something,” Felicity paused to scratch her neck, “um, Helix-related. Can we talk about it tomorrow? I was going to come down to, uh, HQ in the evening.”

Biting his lip, Oliver knew she was waiting for him to relent, to accept the brush-off as he’d been doing. Shoring up his courage, he tried again, “Well, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk about. And I don’t think it should wait till tomorrow.” Still, she didn’t open the door any further. “ _Please._ ”

Rolling her eyes, she stepped back to allow him entrance, muttering about how at least this time he didn’t barge in. The stacks of boxes still felt like an arrow through his chest, uncannily so, but he did his best to ignore the sharp pain. Felicity bolted the door shut and walked through the kitchen to the other side of the living room, giving him a wide berth. “So. What did you want to talk about?”

“Helix,” Oliver was quick to answer, “I want to know what I can do to help you. I know it’s all computers and clouds somehow and international cyberterrorism, but there’s got to be something I can do, right?”

Felicity just blinked at him, as if assessing whether he was telling the truth. “I can’t really think of anything, Oliver. I mean, you shooting an arrow at my computer is going to hurt more than help.”

Her comment reminded him of the times he’d brought a shot-up laptop to her for rescuing, and he huffed out a chuckle. When she only sent him a confused look, Oliver pressed his lips together and exhaled a quick sigh. He hadn’t felt so cut off from her since their argument over Barry back in the day. “Okay,” he conceded with a grimace, “I just wanted to make sure. Because we talked about it, but I feel like I haven’t followed through, and I don’t want to let you down.”

Somehow, he landed on the right words because the set of her shoulders fell slightly from their defensive posture. “I’ll let you know if there’s anything,” Felicity finally responded. She knew she was being non-committal, but this was a mess of her own making and Oliver already had plenty to focus on. His intentions were noble, but she wasn’t going to bank on his attention remaining with her once he quelled the obvious guilt trip he’d sent himself on.

Felicity knew from her own experience, and Dig’s, how easily and stubbornly thrown off course Oliver could be by women he thought himself in love with. Internally, she cringed at just the idea of Oliver being in love with Susan. But something about that wretched woman clearly played on his hero complex, and she brought out a side of Oliver that was unrecognizable even to the people closest to him. If that woman claimed to be in trouble, there was no telling who or what Oliver would toss aside to save her. Felicity, on the other hand, was not going to be burned again by his inability to prioritize. In the eternal words of the animated Hercules movie, she was a damsel, she was in distress, and she was going to handle it.

“How about... your move?” The question was obviously unpalatable to him based on his sour expression. “The Queen name might not be worth much anymore, but I could probably find some old conta—”

“No!” Felicity hastily cut him off, head vigorously shaking to accompany her horrified expression. “I wasn’t—I’ve never—I _hated_ when people assumed I got to where I was because of _your_ name, and even Ray’s for that matter. I’m not starting over in a new city, only for a whole new population to make comments about me earning my position on my back.” Oliver cringed guiltily, obviously not having thought the offer through, and Felicity put up a hand to stall his stumbling apology. “It’s fine,” she took a deep breath to maintain her composure, “Will you please just _go_? It’s late, and I still have work to do.”

“Right,” Oliver agreed readily. She didn’t know what he’d been trying to accomplish, but the conversation obviously hadn’t gone as he expected.

Flustered, he strode to the nearest exit, and Felicity watched in curious confusion before understanding dawned on her, “Seriously? Use the _front_ door, Oliver.” He froze with his hand on the door handle to the balcony and shut his eyes tightly. Felicity could practically see him shoving the memory into the deepest recesses of his mind. Backtracking to the front door, he hurriedly threw a good night over his shoulder along with a reminder to lock the doors and windows.

* * *

“It was a disaster, Dig,” Oliver blew out, hanging from the highest rung of the salmon ladder. He jumped off, taking the bar with him, and landed on his feet nearly noiselessly. “I’m pretty sure I made things worse.”

“Did you think it was going to be easy?” the man honestly questioned as he mechanically made his way through cleaning the gun collection.

“No,” he replied shortly. “But things with Felicity have never been _difficult_. Sometimes awkward and strained, but we’ve never not been on the same page before. Even this summer,” Oliver paused feeling self-conscious about the events of the summer even though literally no one else knew, “we just got to work and ignored our personal problems.”

“Well, it’s different this time around, isn’t it? Usually, Felicity’s putting aside her personal feelings to help you with your missions. Right now, she’s the one with the problem, and you’re the one who needs to step up and be there no matter what,” Dig set down the handgun to observe Oliver with a critical eye, “Are you telling me you’re not willing to do that?”

“Of course I am. I just,” he heaved out a sigh, “wanted to complain about it.”

“Sorry, man. She completely trusted you before, and you took advantage of that. I’m not going to blame her for being cautious around you now,” Dig watched Oliver wince as if he’d been hit and immediately felt bad, “Remember how you made it up to me after bailing on Deadshot? Try something like that.”

Oliver shot him a pissy look. “That’s what I was trying to do. Apparently, there isn’t anyone for me to shoot an arrow at this time. So I tried to be,” his lip curled involuntarily, “supportive of the move, and I just stuck my foot in my mouth instead. Then I tried to leave via the balcony.” He made a face in response to Dig’s bewildered look, “Yeah, I already said it was a disaster.”

“Then try again.”

* * *

“Hey.”

Felicity jumped in her chair, and Oliver worked not to show his discomfort. He’d gotten used to her being able to sense him nearby, and the reminder that she no longer could was unappreciated. She’d been, pretty obviously to him, avoiding the bunker since his recent overtures. That he’d found her on a random Monday afternoon probably had more to do with his cancelled meeting with a state senator than her willingness to be around him.

She only looked over her shoulder at him with a faint smile in greeting, and he again forced himself to move past the brush-off. “Have you eaten? My meeting was cancelled so I was going to grab some burgers for lunch.”

Instead of answering, Felicity pushed back from her desk, crossing her arms over her chest as she turned to face him. “Oliver, why are you doing this?” He tilted his head in question, and she sighed, “You know what. You’re hovering.”

“Am not,” he denied automatically. “Okay, fine, I am. But only because you agreed you were going to let me help you, and all you’ve done is shut me out even more than before. And I get why, okay? You don’t trust me, and it’s my fault. I’m not even sure what the hell it is I _can_ do to help, but I am going to prove to you that I am here. If that means I am in your face 24/7, then you’re going to have to get used to me again.”

“Oliver, that’s—” Felicity rolled her eyes, “I was going to say sweet, but it’s really just overbearing and creepy. I’m sorry if you feel like I’m shutting you out, but that doesn’t mean you get to force me to accept your assistance on your terms so you can feel like you’re doing more. That is so ass-backwards. You can prove that you’re there for me by actually being there if I _ask_  for your help. Until then, back off.”

“ _Felicity_.”

“No,” she cut him off with a scoff. “Stop it. I’m not going to pretend you’re the best person for this job to play into your hero complex. If you want someone to stroke your ego and tell you that you can solve all the world’s problems by yourself, then go crawling back to Susan. You’re not getting it from this corner.”

“I am not trying to stroke my own ego,” he seethed, “You even admitted that you’re in over your head, and you need help. You can’t say that I can help you and then just take it back because you changed your mind.”

“Why not? You do it all the time,” Felicity carelessly threw back, lifting her chin in a challenging manner, “And, Oliver, you’re really delusional about my life before we met. I was a child prodigy with a smart phone and a problem with authority. Things got dicey. When Quentin brought me in for questioning the first time and I was dodging and weaving all over the place, did it seem like it was my first rodeo?”

Ignoring the bait that he knew was thrown out to distract him, Oliver just sighed, “Why won’t you let me help you?”

“Because I don’t know how long that offer is going to stay on the table. If it expires the moment Susan or Samantha or our mortal enemy of the year tells you not to, and you blindly follow _their_ instructions,” Felicity set her jaw as he met her eyes with a look of dismay, “So I appreciate the offer, Oliver, but I’m sorry. I thought that I could do this with you. But I can’t. Not now. Maybe not ever again.”

The despair in his eyes deepened as Oliver recalled the words she was simply echoing back to him. “I don’t accept that,” he shook his head in denial, but she seemed to ignore him entirely, retrieving her purse and leaving.

* * *

“Strike two?” Diggle called out from where he was training with Dinah that night.

Oliver shuffled off the elevator, letting the weariness from the day settle deep in his bones. “Strike two,” he confirmed, ignoring Dinah’s confused expression that disappeared when Dig took a cheap shot.

* * *

“How long you going to leave him flapping in the wind like this?”

Felicity barely looked up at Dig before he cut off her attempt at ignorance with a knowing expression. “I wasn’t aware three days was an eternity,” she grumbled under her breath, “And I thought you were on my side.”

“I’m on the side that keeps you out of jail and makes you whole and happy,” Dig honestly responded, “Oliver’s got some experience with both.”

“I think I’ve tried enough things Oliver has experience with. Excuse me if I’m not open to this one.” Dig paled and twisted his face into an expression of disgust, and Felicity quickly backtracked, “Food! Dig, I was talking about food. Don’t even go there.”

Shaking his head to clear it, Dig carried on, “He’s trying. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“It did. That night, he was being so earnest, so much like _my_ Oliver. I couldn’t say no.” Catching Dig’s expression, Felicity gave him an impatient look, “Still not talking about s-e-x. Cut it out. I confided in him, like old times. But in the harsh light of day, I don’t know. It’s too big of a risk.”

“Felicity, what happened?” Dig asked probingly, fully prepared to rain down hell, fire, and brimstone if _someone_ had approached Felicity to shake her up.

“Nothing _happened_. I just remembered that there’s a reason I don’t normally let people get close and there’s a reason I’ve taken care of myself for so long. People just disappoint you in the end—not you, you’re the salt of the earth, John Diggle. I’m glad Oliver finally sees Susan for what she is. For however long that lasts,” Felicity scowled, knowing she needed to cut out the snide remarks before she was irreparably bitter. “But with that kind of poor judgment, how am I supposed to trust him? Taking down Helix is too important to mess up. I can’t allow the possibility of Oliver backsliding to interfere.”

“So shutting him out is you being practical?” Dig was clearly skeptical, “Nothing at all to do with your fears of abandonment?”

“Dig, I just admitted that that’s part of it. It’s probably always going to be a part of me. Thanks ever so, Noah, Cooper, and Oliver. I always wanted a crippling fear of abandonment; you really shouldn’t have,” she muttered sarcastically. “But I also can’t chance another Havenrock just so Oliver feels like his feelings are being considered. None of us have ever gotten that luxury.”

“Okay,” Dig held up his hands in acquiescence, “but if you’re lying to me, I will find out, and I will come make you deal with your feelings.”

“I expect nothing less,” Felicity replied rolling her eyes.

* * *

“Oh my god, take a hint!”

Oliver impatiently knocked on the door again. “I’ll keep doing this all night if I have to,” he called back through the heavy door. The door flew open, and his brain unimportantly noted that her workouts were paying off.

“Do you really think a week of you not being an oblivious asshole is going to make up for the past year?” Felicity angrily questioned. “Because it’s not. It doesn’t. And I am done having this conversation.”

Scowling, he ignored the damning words and got to the point, “I found Helix.”

Felicity stared at him like he was an idiot before scoffing, “Helix is a network of the best hackers in the world, operating on a platform so hidden that it makes the dark web look as accessible and as harmless as Pinterest. You don’t _find_ Helix because there is nothing to find.”

“Do you want to argue about it? Or do you want to go inside and let me tell you what I found?” Oliver shot back and followed when she turned to walk inside. “Remember when I told you about Hong Kong?”

“That it was the best dim sum you ever had?” she answered flippantly. When he glared, she continued, “I remember Ra’s al Ghul trying to kill us with a nerve agent that you encountered in Hong Kong while you did nothing to stop him and lied to us about being brainwashed into Al Sah-him. But carry on.”

Clenching his jaw, Oliver made a deliberate decision to move on. “While I was there, I got to know one of ARGUS’ techs, and he traced the metadata from the information you got to exonerate John, it was bounced through a bunch of servers, but he found the guy,” Oliver revealed, proud even as he tripped over the unfamiliar tech jargon. 

“You think I hadn’t already done that? Cutting off the head is pointless. All it’s going to do is create a void that someone else will fill. I mean, it’s pretty much like how gang territories work,” Felicity sighed as his hopeful expression fell. “I know what I’m doing, Oliver. That you don’t trust me even when it comes to computers anymore is just mind-boggling.”

“That’s not it!” he protested, completely appalled by her conclusion. “I’m just trying to make things easier for you.”

“Well, you’re not. You’re complicating things by getting more people involved. Seriously? Now ARGUS knows about this?” He responded with a pointed look. “Okay, fine, they probably always knew about Helix. But now they know _I’m_  involved, and I really don’t need any more government agencies aware of the _long_ list of crimes I’ve committed. But, hey, that doesn’t matter because _Oliver_  is going to save the day and fix everything!”

Dead silence filled the air after her sarcastic rant, and Felicity winced, feeling like she’d gone too far. His intentions were always so damn noble. “I’ll see myself out,” Oliver quietly stated, and she mutely nodded.

* * *

"I can’t help you with Felicity,” Thea greeted him as she dropped her purse on one of the guest chairs in his office. Oliver motioned for her to sit and she did so reluctantly, crossing her arms and blinking those large eyes innocently at him. “She is dead set on doing this on her own in her own way. Can’t say that I’m unfamiliar or that I haven’t seen it before,” she tacked on as an unsubtle hint for him to be more self-aware, “In any case, I don’t think stalking her till she completely loses it from stress is the right play here, Ollie.”

“I’m taking a different approach,” Oliver responded in a measured tone, his voice telling his little sister to cut it out.

“Oh? You want to tell me about it so I can tell you what a bad idea it is before you piss her off again?” Thea primly questioned.

Chuckling, an action that felt foreign to him these days, Oliver shook his head. “No, I want to have dinner with my little sister before she moves across the country in two days.” Gratifyingly, she looked a little chastised. “And if this is yet another bad idea, I’m happy to take the blame and try again. Though hopefully I get it right before she loses it.”

“Well,” Thea rocked back in the chair as he’d blown her away, “Look at you. Finally learning how to fight for a good thing.”

Oliver frowned heavily. “You’re the one who encouraged me to keep William a secret.”

“I didn’t know half the world, including my mass murderer sperm donor of a father who was working for the enemy, already knew. Plus, I was 21, full of blood lust, and the only real relationship I’d ever had ended in the guy fleeing town to live on the run because he knowingly took the fall for your vigilante alter ego,” she pointed out with an incredulous expression, “What the hell were you doing taking advice from _me_?” When Oliver continued to glare, she clapped her hands together with a saccharine smile, “How about dinner?”

* * *

“I _am_ leaving tomorrow,” Felicity announced decisively when she swung the door open.

Oliver cringed but held his ground, waiting till she caved and gestured him inside. “I know that. And I’ve been thinking.” She turned away and rolled her eyes, and Oliver knew the unsaid remark was _did it hurt?_  ”I was wrong to try to help you with a job. Nothing good has ever come from me interfering in your career. I was wrong to push you to accept help on my terms. And I was wrong to involve ARGUS. Lyla might be in charge now, but there’s no telling what’ll happen if another person like Waller gets ahold of the information.”

“Is this a dream?” she questioned skeptically, “Because if it is, you really shouldn’t be wearing a shirt.”

“ _Felicity_ ,” he sighed out, and she straightened up a little.

“Yeah, okay. Look, I appreciate the apology, Oliver, and everything you’ve tried to do help. I shouldn’t have been so short with you, and I shouldn’t have used your past behavior to justify shutting you down like that. I don’t want to leave with us on bad terms,” she finished with a tired smile.

 _I don’t want you to leave_ , Oliver bit back the plea. “Me neither. So instead of doing something and then telling you about it, can I make a suggestion?” Felicity raised a suspicious eyebrow but then shrugged. “Have you reached out to Noah?”

“You want me to ask the Calculator to take down an international cybercrime ring?” she questioned with yet another _have you lost your goddamn mind?_  expression.

“No, I want you to ask your father to help take down an international cybercrime ring that is harassing and blackmailing his daughter,” Oliver corrected, with a little bit of that spin Thea had been coaching him on. “For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure he’d do anything you asked him to do.”

“Except stick around,” Felicity mumbled distastefully. “I’ll take it under advisement, but don’t hold your breath.”

“Okay,” he nodded slowly, lips twitching with unspoken disapproval. “Will you let me know when you get there and how you’re doing? I know Thea will, but I never understand her texts,” he admitted with a shrug.

“Oliver, it’s not,” she took a step closer, and he held his breath, “it might not be forever. Star City _is_ my home, and the people here are my family. I need distance and space and time to regroup, but I want to come back. The goal is to come back.”

Closing his eyes, Oliver blew out a long breath. “I’ll wait,” when she opened her mouth to protest, he cut her off, “I _will_ wait. And if there’s anything you need, I’m your first call. I am always here for you. Am I clear?”

Felicity searched his eyes for a long moment before she gave him a tentative smile. “Yes, absolutely.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh fine.

Oliver didn’t bother knocking. He quickly picked the lock and threw the door open, rushing in. Immediately, he sensed movement and a weapon coming from his left, the hallway that lead to her bedroom, and his hand shot out, grabbing the would-be assailant by the throat.

“ _Ollie!_ ” Thea choked out, obviously disgruntled as she lowered the baseball bat to knock away his outstretched arm.

Startled, Oliver released her, clenching his hand a few times to loosen the tension. “Shit, I’m sorry, Thea. Where is she?”

“Good to see you, too, big bro,” she sarcastically remarked, wrapping her arms around his waist in a hug that he distractedly returned. He brushed a brief kiss to the top of her head before setting her back and fixing her with a determined stare. “She’s fine. You really didn’t need to break in. Like this goes on the list of Top Ten Excessive Things Oliver Queen Has Done for Felicity Smoak.”

“ _Thea_ ,” he grumbled as she ignored him and went for a set of keys on the counter.

“I was just grabbing some of her things,” she nodded to the small weekend bag sitting next to the door, the one he’d knocked over when he rushed the room, “before heading back to the hospital. You’re welcome to come along.”

Oliver trailed behind her, somewhat calmed by Thea’s easygoing attitude. The last time Felicity had been hospitalized, Thea had pretty much been a complete wreck, right behind him and Donna and Diggle. That she didn’t appear worried was as much of a good sign as he was going to get before seeing her with his own eyes. Then he frowned, “You left her alone at the hospital?”

“No,” his little sister shot him a dirty look before climbing into her small car, and Oliver winced at what was sure to be a tight fit for him, “Noah’s there.” He recoiled slightly, having not expected that answer, but Thea was tight-lipped for the rest of the drive.

* * *

Knowing it was more logical for Thea to lead him to Felicity’s room than for him to run around and frantically harass the staff for her location, Oliver reluctantly followed Thea’s sedate pace, which he knew was entirely to annoy him. Finally, she turned into a room deep in the depths of the private wing of the building, and he shouldered his way past her small frame, beelining for the foot of the bed.

His eyes quickly swept over her unconscious form, assessing for any visible damage even though he could only see her face. _Her eyes_ , he needed to see her eyes to know if she was okay. His heart dropped because the last time they’d been in this situation, she’d been just as wan and just as seemingly unhurt because the majority of the damage had been to her abdomen. A knee buckled, and he stumbled sideways, knocking into an abandoned equipment cart.

“Oliver! Keep it down!” came the sharply whispered reprimand. Only then did he notice Noah Kuttler hunched over in a chair that had been pulled up to the bed, both his hands clutched tightly around one of Felicity’s. “She’s resting,” the older man pointed out obviously before frowning at him in disapproval, “I thought you two weren’t together anymore.”

Oliver didn’t answer, vaguely hearing Thea mutter something along the lines of _It’s complicated_. Instead, he walked around to the other side of the bed. He moved to pick up her free hand but saw the IV taped down and settled for dropping to his knees to lightly kiss her knuckles for fear of dislodging the line. Noting the unpainted nails and picked-at cuticles, he frowned. She must have been nervous, anxious, for weeks if she’d gone that long without a manicure.

Unexpectedly, her hand reached out to touch his cheek, and Oliver’s head flew up to meet her gaze. She was smiling at him fondly, and he lurched forward a bit into the bed, every cell in his body exhaling in relief. “I’m not sleeping. I was just pretending to be so the nurses would leave me alone.” Oliver huffed out a chuckle because it was such a perfectly _Felicity_  thing to do that he knew she was, or would be, okay.

Unable to help himself, he nuzzled into her hand that moved to scratch through his overgrown stubble. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“Helix was a little, well, pissed that we’d been dismantling their network right under their noses. So they rigged a bunch of the electronics in the room to explode, remember like the Clock King?” Oliver nodded and, out of the corner of his eye, saw Noah frown again at the mention that Felicity had experienced this kind of danger before. “It took us by surprise, and we got a little banged up. I was closest to the servers. No major damage, but I did hit my head. They’re just keeping me for observation.”

Oliver took in the other two people in the room, finally noting the red patches on Thea’s forearms that spoke to light burns and the bandage on Noah’s neck. “What’d you tell them?” he asked curiously, knowing that they wouldn’t have the same relationship with the hospital staff like back in Star City.

Grinning, Thea replied, “That I was trying to rig up a hot tub and overloaded the electrical circuit, and it blew out.” Oliver responded with an unimpressed look because that was definitely something he’d been expelled for at one of his four colleges.

The siblings were interrupted by Noah slowly, reluctantly, rising to his feet. “I should get going,” he announced, staring down at Felicity with clear remorse in his eyes. “I wrote down some false information on the forms,” he offered as an explanation, and Felicity sighed. Noah patted her shoulder awkwardly and turned to leave before whirling back around at the door. “I know I don’t have the right to say this to you, but don’t you ever do anything like that again. Do you hear me? I’ve been worried sick.”

Felicity chuckled at the unexpected display of fatherliness from the otherwise hardened criminal and nodded her acknowledgment before lifting a hand in a sad wave. Suddenly looking ten years older, the man stared at her with a resigned desperation that Oliver was uncomfortably familiar with, until he finally drifted down the hallway.

After a long moment, Thea shuffled her feet, “And I’m going to go not be here. Text me with what you want to do about tonight.” Her last sentence was directed at Oliver, knowing he wouldn’t leave the hospital without Felicity.

Without hesitation, Oliver sank into the chair Noah had vacated, dragging it even closer to the bed, before latching onto her hand. He pressed the back of it to his cheek then turned her hand over so he could feel her pulse against his lips. His long sigh of relief was accompanied by her full-bodied shudder, and Oliver closed his eyes against the onslaught of emotion.

“Is it over?” he roughly asked, willing himself not to get his hopes up.

“It’s over,” she confirmed with a shaky smile, “We crashed every server and set up a bunch of governments with the information. They’ve been coordinating some mass arrests that are going to have to be kept very confidential. It’s not going to be great if these people get out jail and know exactly who to team up with again.” Oliver looked at her dubiously, and she shrugged, “It’s white collar crime essentially. Let’s be real. They’ll get out.”

“Okay,” Oliver agreed, not really concerned with the deficiencies of the criminal justice system at the current moment in time. She gave him another tired smile, and he implored her to sleep, more than happy to sit watch.

* * *

Felicity was discharged in the morning after having slept through most of the night. Oliver had taken the time to update Dig and check in with his staff who’d probably been concerned when he sprinted out of a meeting and bought an absurdly priced ticket to San Francisco. Thea had gone home at the end of visiting hours and returned bright and early with Oliver’s rental car, which would actually fit the three of them for the drive back to their apartment complex. His sister had her own unit in the building across the parking lot from Felicity’s so she waved them off after setting a time to meet for dinner.

Cautiously, Oliver trudged up the stairs behind Felicity’s slow-moving form, trying his damnedest not to appreciate the view and miserably failing. He dropped the bag Thea had brought to the hospital  in the laundry room as Felicity directed then collapsed onto the couch next to her. She nudged him with her foot, and he automatically lifted her legs to set them in his lap. After the slight adjustment, they were quiet, comfortably so, and dozens of words died in his throat as he tried to broach the subject.

They’d seen each other every couple weeks during the past year. It had been rarer than he liked but Felicity was reluctant to spend too much time in Star City before she was ready, and Oliver had been told that it was a bad look for the mayor to be constantly out of the city.

The first time had been when Felicity came back to help them finally take down Adrian Chase. As disturbing as the experience had been, it had also been a relief to know that their partnership flowed as smoothly as ever, a well-oiled machine despite her weeks away at that point. Then again, it had never been the working part of their relationship that they struggled with. The next few times had been life occasions: he had flown out for Thea’s birthday; both women had returned for John’s; and in a display of support he hadn’t been expecting, Felicity had stepped off the plane behind Thea on the anniversary of their mother’s death.

After that, and a comment from Diggle about how he was tired of giving pep talks, Oliver had begun to visit whenever he could leave the office and the bunker, simply because he wanted to and could no longer stay away. He’d given Felicity full permission to kick him out or to tell him to stop showing up, but she had, after a debilitating pause, declined. For a month, Oliver had still worried he was overstepping his bounds, not giving her the time and space she had asked for and he agreed to respect. Then, she had started arranging trips for them, offering to meet him in places between their current residences. The compromise had felt like a victory, and when they spent the time together, exploring those unfamiliar locations and reestablishing their friendship, Oliver couldn’t help but be reminded of their summer away. (Minus one sorely missed perk.)

“Aren’t you going to ask me?” Her soft question jerked him out of his reminiscing, and Oliver blinked in confusion. Felicity gave him a fond look at the confused puppy expression before clarifying, “Aren’t you going to ask me to come home?”

His heart stuttered at the thought, just the very idea of Felicity _physically_ back in the same city. She already occupied every nook and cranny of his mind when he was there. “Well,” Oliver started then stopped himself, “No. No, I’m not. I’m not going to ask because I trust that you’ll know when you’re ready and you’ll come back on your own.”

Felicity opened her mouth to respond but then thought better of it. She dropped her gaze to her folded hands, trying to ignore Oliver’s nervous twitch that had him rubbing her exposed ankle bone with his calloused thumb. They had grown impossibly closer in the past year, despite the distance, and had regained a familiarity level that she had thought impossible. It was an entirely different rebuilding process when she knew that they were making the effort and taking the time to be together, not just tripping over each other in the routine of their lives. She’d been impressed by Oliver’s insistence on flying out, so that she wouldn’t have to be in Star City before she was ready, and quietly pleased by his fumbling efforts to ensure that he wasn’t pressuring her.

It had been an easy call because he wasn’t and yet he was, in just the right ways.

He’d deferred to her on taking down Helix and had stopped pushing her to accept his often misguided attempts to help. But he was consistently available whenever she needed a sounding board for any ideas and unflinchingly supportive despite the many setbacks. Through his dependability, he’d unintentionally rebuilt her trust. When she’d finally settled on calling her father for help, as Oliver had suggested, Felicity had decided not to involve him, fearing that _someone_ would find out the Mayor of Star City was colluding with the FBI’s Most Wanted. So far, Oliver hadn’t displayed any judgment or disappointment over how she’d handled things, just relief that they’d escaped unscathed.

She had suggested the trips because she wanted something that would bring them both happiness in their increasingly hostile worlds. The Ivy Town, heads-in-the-sand lifestyle had never been sustainable, but there had to be a way for all their conflicting priorities to sometimes coexist. She had to know that they could and would make time for one another even in the most trying of times.

Settling on her answer, Felicity beamed at him until he shakily exhaled the breath he’d been holding. “Oliver, I’m coming home.”


End file.
